In response to one of the greatest oil disasters in history, the U.S. Senate will do nothing. Republican opposition to the limited oil industry reform package assembled by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (S. 3663) has led him to pull the bill — and the BP-friendly Republican alternative (S. 3643) — from the floor. Pressed for time, Reid chose not to force his opponents to cast a vote on behalf of their oil sponsors. Reid’s package is almost exclusively made of bipartisan pieces of legislation:

These initiatives would have held BP accountable, created jobs, protected the environment, cleaned the air, and strengthened energy security.

However, Murkowski, Hatch, and Graham joined their Republican colleagues — as well as the oil-fueled Democrats Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Mark Begich (D-AK) — in opposing Reid’s bill because it lifted the $75 million liability cap for oil companies like BP responsible for a major oil spill.

The Republican counter-proposal would have replaced the liability cap with a complicated formula that essentially kept the cap unchanged, keeping the American taxpayer on the hook for any future big oil bailouts.